Christie McBride

Christian McBride is the most recorded bassist of his generation.
That should say something of the value of having a Christian McBride
on a record. But mostly, it says something about his versatility. Is
he the Macgyver of jazz? Come to your own conclusions after this
conversation with Christian McBride, coming to a town near you,
unedited and in his own words.

Fred Jung: Let's start from the
beginning.

Christian McBride: My father plays bass and my great uncle
plays bass, so it was pretty obvious from the get that I was going
to be a bass player too.

FJ:Not the
easiest traveling companion.

CM: I always had one of my teachers who had a station wagon
lug me around.

FJ: How have you developed since your
last Verve record and Vertical Vision ?

CM: I think for starters, I have a better band. The guys that
I have playing in my band now, with Geoffrey Keezer and Terreon
Gully and Ron Blake. Ron has been there for a while, but Geoffrey
and Terreon joined just a little over two years ago. They brought
such a new air of excitement and daring to the group. I think that
is by far what separates this CD from the last two CDs I did for
Verve, which were also band CDs.

This was the first band I had where there is absolutely no
musical tension from anyone in the group. Everybody loves to try
different things. No idea is too crazy for these guys, which is just
the kind of musicians I have always wanted.

First of all, the concept for this record was to just capture
the band energy. I didn't really have a serious, drawn out, deep
musical concept that I wanted to go with. The CD was merely to
capture the band's energy. If you listen to “Technicolor Nightmare”
or “The Ballad of Little Girl Dancer” or “Boogie Woogie Waltz,” I
would like to think it gets pretty intense at times and that would
not have happened with any of my last two bands.

FJ:Over
the last few years, very few bass players have been documented both
as a leader and a sideman.

CM: I have never really had a period where I did one thing
more than another, particularly in the last couple of years. I have
never had a one year stretch where I only did band leading or I only
did sideman. I think the fact that I have been able to juggle both
things pretty evenly, particularly being sideman, it helps me keep
my band leading focused in order.

It is always good to step in someone else's space and check
out how they run the band and you can take in little bits and
pieces. I will check out how Sting runs his ship or how Roy Haynes
or Chick Corea run their ship. I will learn a lot from some guys who
are a little more direct and some guys are a little more strict and
some guys are a little more loose. I am learning a little bit from
everybody.

I think the biggest thing I have learned is great bandleaders
let guys in their band be themselves. What good is it to hire a
really great piano player or great sax player if you are going to
order him around and tell him what to play all the time? Then you
don't really get the energy that made you want to hire that person.

I have been in situations where some guys will hire somebody
and they say that they want you to do this and do that and they end
up sounding just like the guy that they fired. There is no change. I
think Miles proved that. He was the greatest bandleader of all time
because he let guys be who they were. He gave just enough
instruction that he got what he wanted out of them, but they didn't
lose their own identity. And that is the key to being a great
bandleader.

I think the biggest compliment that I have ever gotten is that
we just got back from Europe just yesterday and Gary Burton was
opening for us and this was the first time that Gary had heard the
band and he said, “You know what is great about your band, Chris? I
can't tell whose band it is.” That is actually the biggest
compliment that I could get.

FJ: We live in a time when technology
allows communication on levels unimagined a decade ago. How have you
utilized the advancements in communication to reach out to your
audience?

CM: I have certainly been one for direct communication with
the listener. Certainly, with the age of the internet, I try my very
best to keep my website up and running and current and try to make
it very user friendly. I think my website has been one of the more
successful ones of most jazz artists. I am really surprised that
more jazz artists don't have websites, especially now. It is really
not that big a deal to have a website. Everybody has got them. That
is the one thing. I try to keep my website pretty happening.

Secondly, when I am in certain cities and when I am on the
road, you have record companies that set up and take you out to
retail places so that you meet the owner and shake hands. All these
years, I met a lot of people and friends so not only do I try to go
to the big retail shops, but I try to go to a lot of the mom and pop
stores too.

Mom and pop stores are almost non-existent in this day and
age. They're not as important as they once were. I think that is
because corporate America has taken such a chokehold with all these
record companies, they forgot about the mom and pop stores that are
in the community. So I try to reach out to those people directly.

FJ: You mentioned the website, where you
feature a diary.

CM: It does get a little dicey sometimes because I will meet
people who think they know me and I am like, “Hey, wait a minute.
Back up.” For example, you used to be able to email me at my
website, but I had to take that down fast because some of the emails
that came through were marriage proposals, girls sending pictures.

One guy sent me an email saying if I thought it was righteous
that I wear so many sporting uniforms. What does the essence of
sports have to do with Paul Chambers?

FJ: That guy is taking life a bit too
seriously.

CM: Every now and then, I got emails like that, so I pulled
that down quick. But now, they just go on the message board.
Certainly, with the new CD coming out, there have been hits coming
left and right on the website. It has really been good most of the
time. I really have to be careful how much of myself I expose on the
website. I don't want to give everything away.

FJ: Being associated with a major label
is a blessing hidden in a great deal of angst.

CM: Well, I think the good part about me doing what I have
always wanted to do, how I wanted to do it on all my CDs, is that I
am in the position now that what people expect from me is the
unexpected.

Nobody knows where I am going next and I like it like that. I
could go to the right. I could go and do a real traditional,
straight-ahead album. I could do that at any moment. I could put the
acoustic bass down all together. That is unlikely, but it is
possible, and do an all electric bass album. I could do a solo bass
album. I got a lot of influences in which to draw from and I don't
think anybody has been able to predict where I am going next.

Of course, the flipside of that, musically, that is great, but
commercially, it doesn't really ring a great bell with most people
in the office. I think the sad part about my last days at Verve was
that they made it very clear that they were going to change their
focus. Not only me, but there were a lot of great artists, Nicholas
Payton, Russell Malone, Eric Reed, a lot of guys suffered the burden
of the corporate choke as I referred to earlier.

You are going to pay a price either way you go. If you try to
appease the brass, you could easily get a really big hit that you
hate, but you have to perform that the rest of your life or you can
make the music you want to make and not have a big company to push
your music. Either way you go, you have your pros and cons. I would
rather go to my grave happy with the kind of music that I make.

FJ: Now that you are on the Warner Bros.
label, I know some A&R guy has pitched a Joshua Redman, Chris
McBride, Brad Mehldau reunion.

CM: Of course, but if I was still on Verve, it would be a Mark
Whitfield, Nicholas Payton reunion. If I were on Telarc, it would be
a Benny Green, Russell Malone reunion. Anyway you go, you will have
an all-star setting. They are always going to throw their artists
together to do more all-star records.

As far as Joshua's group is concerned, who knows. Mehldau is
already well established as a leader now as well as Brian Blade.
Brian Blade is doing so much stuff, I would like to bet money if
anybody could get him for a recording session in the next two years.
We will see what happens.

FJ: By your own admission, you are
boundless by category, which allows for a great deal of
misconceptions and preconceived biases, particularly on your new
record.

CM: Right, which has been going on really badly with this new
CD. I think the biggest misconception about this entire CD is every
marketing position needs an angle in which to sell the CD and I
think with a lot of the stories that have been written, the angle is
that Christian McBride is no longer an acoustic, straight-ahead,
young lion. He has turned his back on straight-ahead jazz and that
is really the most wrong thing anybody can say.

We are very much a jazz group. We still play a lot of
straight-ahead. The acoustic bass is still very much the central
nervous system of everything that I do in this band. I don't want
people to read any of these articles and think that I don't play
jazz anymore.

We're still playing jazz, but we don't play it as we did five
or six years ago. We have more rhythms. We have more textures. We
have more layers going on.

That's probably the main angle that I want to try and squash.
I don't want people to think that I have suddenly put the acoustic
bass down and don't like swing rhythms anymore. That is probably the
biggest one.

FJ: You are playing what you know.

CM: I think a lot of people, while they love jazz so much, the
prejudice of jazz that they don't even realize, but most people who
are hardcore jazz fans think that every time you hear jazz, it is
supposed to be a history lesson and that is not exactly true.

People fail to see the number one, raw, most basic reason why
people like Miles and Coltrane and Charlie Parker were such great
musicians because they took chances. They did things that were not
conventional. I think people fail to see that.

Charlie Parker and Coltrane, particularly Coltrane, made his
strides in world music. I would almost bet that if Coltrane had
lived another ten years, he would have hooked up with somebody like
a Jimi Hendrix or James Brown. We have more things to draw from and
I think people have this prejudice like the Beatles are not a jazz
group and James Brown is not a jazz musician, but they are great
musicians. They made great music. No, it is not jazz, but it is
fine.

One of the great things about playing jazz is that we can take
music from those other things and turn it into something brand new
and fresh.

FJ: What would you like to have up the
yin yang?

CM: (Laughing) Money.

FJ: It can't buy happiness? Eternal
youth or unlimited wealth?

CM: Eternal youth.

FJ: Nike or Armani?

CM: At the moment, Nike, but that might change. Here is the
thing, Fred, I have both in my closet, but it depends on what band I
am playing with.

FJ: Brunettes or blondes?

CM: (Laughing) Oh, I really got to plead the Fifth on that. It
is not so much the hair color, but the vibe.

FJ: Finish this: Don't be fooled by the
rocks that I got...

CM: Beware of the case that holds them (laughing).

FJ:That
ain't the song. We have talked football before, but not since the
Eagles were a win away from the Super Bowl.

CM: Even though they damn near made me jump out my window this
past post season series. Tampa Bay just had their number. They were
just flat out the better team. They out-coach them and outplayed
them. Jon Gruden just had his guys really together. I don't think
anybody could have beat them.

Philly got the new stadium and I am really crossing my fingers
that Hugh Douglas doesn't leave. They already lost, I can't believe
Brian Mitchell signed with the Giants. That broke my heart. Not only
did he leave the Eagles, but he signed with the arch-enemy. That was
a dagger.

FJ:And the
future?

CM: We get to the West Coast in April. We will be in LA at
Catalina's.

“...he said, 'You know what is great about your band, Chris?

I can't tell whose band it is.'

That is
actually the biggest compliment that I could get.”

Philadelphia native Christian McBride stands
among contemporary music’s heaviest musicians. That’s no
reflection of McBride’s physical stature, or even of his
cavernous speaking voice. It is descriptive of his
powerful, profoundly resonant voice on acoustic and electric
bass. It almost certainly applies to his formidable body of
work, which includes seven albums as a leader and session work
with legends inside (Jimmy Smith, McCoy Tyner) and outside
(Kathleen Battle, Sting) the world of jazz, all of which seems
to have singularly prepared McBride to assume the mantle of “the
jazz bassist” so graciously worn by Ron Carter for the past five
decades.

“Heavy” sure as hell describes McBride’s latest release,
three discs recorded Live at Tonic that document
McBride’s two-night, 2005 engagement at one of NYC’s most
famously
experimental musical venues.

The first set each night presented McBride’s working
quartet with Terreon Gully (drums), Ron Blake (tenor and soprano
saxophone, flute) and Geoffrey Keezer (piano and keyboards)
working out their regular repertoire; the best takes from the
two first sets comprise this first CD. These featured tracks
from McBride’s most recent studio release, Vertical Vision,
such as the roaring jazz-rock “Technicolor Nightmare” and Joe
Zawinul’s enduring “Boogie Woogie Waltz,” plus the quietly
soulful ballad “Sitting on a Cloud,” from Gettin' To It,
McBride’s 1994 debut as a leader.

This first CD also captures four previously unrecorded
tunes, including the bassist’s tribute to late comedian Flip
Wilson (“Clerow’s Flipped,” as saucy and bold as Wilson’s female
alter-ego, Geraldine) and Blake’s on-time title “Sonic Tonic,”
an exercise for working out the band’s considerable soul-jazz
chops.

For the second set each night, McBride opened up his
company to guest musicians for collective improvisations. Disc
two comes from the first night with Charlie Hunter (guitar),
Jason Moran (piano) and Jenny Schienman (violin) and pays
tribute to two primary influences on bassist McBride: James
Brown (“Give it Up or Turnit Loose,” including the requisite
drum breakdown/beatdown) and Miles Davis (an interpretation of
Davis’ jazz-rock fusion landmark Bitches Brew, with Blake
blowing overtones of Wayne Shorter on his soprano sax).

The second night's second set is captured on disc three, a
tumultuous party hosted by the McBride quartet for DJ Logic
(turntables), Scratch (formerly of The Roots, on beatbox), Eric
Krasno (of Soulive, on guitar) and Rashawn Ross (trumpet). It
begins with McBride, Gully and Krasno operating as an impossibly
deft, three-headed single-engine rhythm machine, which
jackhammers open a heavy groove that McBride’s electric bass
keeps pumping for more than thirty minutes! After McBride
introduces Ross as “one of the funkiest trumpet players on the
scene today,” pouring molten musical lava from his hot trumpet,
Ross shows him right; Ross blows the stuffings out of the fourth
and final number on this third disc, too. McBride, his bandmates
and his guests, all join together to embody the simple, profound
joy, the love (no less than this romantic word will do) of
spontaneous, interactive creation—the joy of jamming.

“The second CD was very experimental yet very much a jazz
performance whereas the third CD was pretty much an all-out
party,” McBride suggests.

From McBride’s jazz roots, Live at Tonic blossoms
into funk, hip-hop, jungle and other music, too. Thick, deep and
heavy, it is one package that should be sold by weight and
by volume. Upon the release of this album, McBride discussed
Philly soul, Allen Iverson, Fred Sanford and the joy of jam.

AAJ: What makes an eight-year-old
boy growing up in Philly pick up an electric bass? Why didn’t
you just quit after a few years of lessons, like so many kids
do?

Christian McBride: Actually, I was nine when I picked up
the electric bass. I feel very lucky in that as soon as I picked
up the electric bass, I pretty much knew that that was what I
was going to be doing for the rest of my life. It felt very
natural. It just felt very comfortable. You know, my father
plays bass and so my initial inspiration came from watching him
play. And once I got the instrument and started playing around
on it, kind of getting accustomed to the feel of it, it just
felt more and more natural. So I knew that that’s what I was
going to be doing for the rest of my life. Then once I got to
junior high school and had to play in the orchestra, that’s when
I started playing the acoustic bass. And that felt just as
natural. So I feel lucky that I “found my thing” early in life.

AAJ: The first song you ever learned
was “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”? Were you more of a Motown Soul
guy or a Stax soul guy in your formative days?

CM: I probably would say that our household leaned a
little bit more toward Motown, probably by a two-to-one ratio.

AAJ: What does the phrase “Philly
Soul” mean to you?

CM: Having come up in the R&B scene and the jazz scene in
Philadelphia, “Philly Soul” for me stretches along a pretty
broad boundary line: It means obviously, I think the most
general terminology that people think of (Kenny) Gamble and
(Leon) Huff and Teddy Pendergrass and The Delfonics, that kind
of thing. But to me it also means guys like the great
saxophonists Tony Williams and Grover Washington Jr. and all of
the great jazz musicians from Philly: Bootsie Barnes, the late
Eddie Green, people like Trudy Pitts and Mr. C, that also means
“Philly Soul” to me, as well as Gamble and Huff.

Jones, Wooden & Jackson

AAJ: You once said about Quincy
Jones: “Q studies people and figures out what to do with them
like a great basketball coach.” How did you coach your band
through the two jam sessions on CDs two and three of Live at
Tonic?

CM: I think most great bandleaders—at least what I’ve
experienced—most great bandleaders are ones that give you just
enough direction to kind of get what they want out of the music
but also to give you as little direction as possible, just to
let you be yourself. I think with most great basketball coaches,
they’re able to see what a person’s strengths are and really
kind of let them fly and produce on their strengths, as opposed
to trying to make them do something that they’re not really that
great at.

I think that as a bandleader you kind of take a look at
the field and you see what each musician does, and what you feel
are their strengths, and you kind of let them do that. As
opposed to saying, ‘Well, you play great ballads. Well, this
isn’t really a ballad band—I want you to start playing more
faster things.’ That really wouldn’t be a good coach. So after
working with Quincy Jones and just looking at his history, I
think he’s been able to do the same thing.

AAJ: Who in your opinion have been
the greatest college coach, and the greatest pro basketball
coach, of your lifetime?

CM: Hmm... greatest college coach. That’s kinda hard. I
would have to say John Wooden, maybe, for college. Greatest pro
coach? Hmm... dare I say, Phil Jackson? I know the argument is
that, ‘Well, he had Michael Jordan, therefore anybody could have
coached the Bulls and won the title.’ But I don’t think so. Doug
Collins also coached Jordan and they didn’t get to the Finals.

AAJ: And then he went and did it
with a completely different team, with the Shaq/Kobe Lakers.
But, I’m a 76ers lifer, so I’m a Lakers hater. Sort of comes
with the territory, you know?

CM: Yeah, I’ve explained to many people: Being born in
Philadelphia, you’re kind of born hating the Boston Celtics, the
Dallas Cowboys, the Atlanta Braves and the New Jersey Devils.

AAJ: If you were
Billy King for one day, and could get a starting player and top
ten draft pick in exchange, would you trade Allen Iverson?

CM: Well, let me say if I were Billy King, I would resign!
I would step down! But anyway, top five pick and a starter,
would I trade A.I.? Probably.

And the only reason I say that is because I absolutely
love Allen Iverson. I think he’s been probably the most game
athlete probably in any major sport since he’s been on the
scene. You just watch all the heart he plays with, and the fire
and the passion. It bothers me that it’s been very difficult to
find a group of guys to kind of put around him to get the Sixers
over the hump. Obviously the closest they came was the 2000
Finals.

But it just kinda bothers me that throughout the years the
Sixers have had some pretty good teams that actually, probably
could have gotten the Sixers over the hump had they stuck
with them for awhile. You look at the long list of guys who were
supposed to. Each season: ‘OK, this is the perfect guy
who’s going to compliment AI.’ I’m speaking of Toni Kukoc, at
one point they had Larry Hughes, then it’s Keith Van Horn, then
it’s Glenn Robinson, then it’s Derrick Coleman. They’re like,
‘Oh no, no, no, we got it wrong last season, but this is
the guy who’s really gonna...’ Matt Harpring, Kyle Korver—you
know, ‘We need a guy who can shoot some three pointers.’ Then
it’s defense: ‘We’ll go out and get (Dikembe) Mtumbo,’ and
‘Don’t worry, Dalembert’s going to get better.’ It’s just like,
every year, ‘This is the guy.’ They just don’t stick with
anybody. I’m pretty sure that there’s been a different starting
lineup every year that AI’s been in Philly.

AAJ: Obviously you’re a fan of his
song “Giveit Up or Turnit Loose.” What are two of your other
favorite James Brown basslines?

AAJ: Listening to Live at Tonic
brought back to mind two of my favorite live albums growing up
in the 1970s. The first one was King Curtis Live at Fillmore
West...

CM:I had a feeling you were going to say that.

AAJ: Really?

CM: Yeah.

AAJ: And it’s because Terreon Gully
rocks drums so much like Bernard Purdie... so it’s safe to say
that you ARE familiar with that record?

CM: I think that any person who claims for themselves to
be a fan or R&B or soul music, they kind of have to know that
album. I think that’s one of the seminal live albums of all time
and of course the album that went along with that, Aretha
Franklin Live at Fillmore West. Those two albums I think are
just two classics.

AAJ: There’s another live album it
brought to mind: Les McCann Live at Montreux. What got me
was, there’s a moment on side four where Rahsaan Roland Kirk
comes out and he begins blowing backstage and as he walks
onstage he gets closer to the mike, you hear him cookin’,
like whatever’s been boiling, he’s about to drop in more hot
pepper. Rashawn Ross’ entrance on disc three sounds a whole lot
like that.

CM: Well, I’ll tell you, we had a whole lot of fun on
that. I think the second night, which is disc three, that was
more of a... the second CD was very experimental yet very much a
jazz performance whereas the third CD was pretty much an all-out
party.

Fred Sanford and “the fifth Beatle”

AAJ: You’ve appeared on so very many
great records, we want to give you the opportunity to reminisce
about what must have been three of many highlights for you: The
first is Jimmy Smith’s Damn! (1995), his first recording
for Verve Records in twenty years.

CM: Jimmy Smith was by far the real-life Fred Sanford. I
don’t think anybody on this earth—I’m almost willing to bet that
Norman Lear got the Fred Sanford character from Jimmy Smith. He
was a terribly funny, crotchety, grouchy, hilarious old man.

I remember he refused to play any song unless (producer)
Richard Seidel went out and got him a new six-pack. So by the
end of the day, at the end of every session, there’d just be a
sea of beer bottles at the bottom of the B-3. So many people
were on that CD... it was another one of those sessions that was
a big party atmosphere; we didn’t do any rehearsing, we just
kind of went in there and worked out the songs right before we
recorded them. As you know, the concept was originally to kind
of recreate his old Blue Note jam sessions like The Sermon
and things like that. But we had a lot of fun on those albums; I
mean, Jimmy kept us in stitches the whole time, telling us
stories and really just doing raucous things.

AAJ: Shifting the mood: The second
is McCoy Tyner’s What the World Needs Now: The Music of Burt
Bacharach (Verve, 1997)

CM: I’ll be honest: That CD, I’m actually not quite that
fond of, because I think that was a really... It was in good
faith but it was Verve’s opportunity to try and make McCoy Tyner
less African-rooted and make him little more mainstream. McCoy
Tyner’s music has always been coming out of and been influenced
by Coltrane, it’s been influenced by African and Indian
influences, and his sound has always been about as singular as
someone’s sound can be.

I can remember when we all got the call, that McCoy
Tyner’s doing this Burt Bacharach album, we all kinda looked at
each other going, ‘Whaaaat? McCoy plays who?’ We were all
just kind of interested to see—we can’t wait to see how McCoy
interprets that.

Actually, the album probably could have worked had it not
been with that orchestra. Had it just been the trio or small
group, it might have come off a little better. But my personal
opinion was that that album came out terribly schmaltzy, and I
think that album should have been recorded with someone else. I
think with someone else that album would have worked out
perfectly. Just because of our passion and knowing McCoy Tyner’s
history, I personally didn’t think that album worked as well as
a couple of other albums I worked with him on, like
Illuminations and Preludes and Sonatas. But you can’t
blame Verve for trying...

AAJ: And then another shift of mood,
with The Philadelphia Experiment (2001)?

CM: I have fond memories of that album mainly because it
was my first time getting to play with Ahmir (Thompson) again
after, probably since high school I don’t think I’ve had a
chance to play with him. And Uri Caine of course was another guy
I used to work while I was still in high school; as a matter of
fact, we used to play in Joe Sudler’s Swing Machine together. So
it was kind of like a homecoming. I just knew right off the bat
that this was going to be a fun, real loose, sloppy but
happening kind of jam session. And I think Aaron Levinson and
Andy Hurwitz did a good job, in the post-production they did a
good job putting all of the music together. It’s unfortunate we
didn’t get the chance to do too many live concerts behind that
album. We only did two, one in New York and one in Philly. But I
have a lot of great memories about session and the two gigs that
happened from it.

AAJ: While you’re in a reflective
mood let’s move into your own catalog, beginning with your
debut, Gettin’ To It (Verve, 1994): Anything you know now
that you might have done differently then?

CM: I don’t think so. I think that album was a very
innocent album, when I think back on it. You know, it was my
first CD and it really wasn’t an overly conceptualized CD. I
really just figured, ‘Hey, I’ve got a few songs, I’ll call some
great musicians, and we’ll put together a good session.’ And
that’s what it turned out to be and fortunately it was not only
successful artistically but it was also successful commercially.
I got a lot of gigs out of that CD for the entire year of ’95
and most of ’96.

AAJ: Next I want to ask you about
A Family Affair (Verve, 1998) and in particular about
producer George Duke.

CM: Hoping you would.

AAJ: Was George Duke a good match as
a producer with the material for that record?

CM: I think he was the perfect match for me because a lot
of hard core jazz fans really forget how great George Duke is. I
mean, they think of ‘George Duke’ and they think of all of
the... you know,

they think of the...

AAJ: “Boogie Oogie Oogie”

CM: ...“Sweet Baby” and all that kind of stuff, and they
never remember about the Cannonball Adderley days.

AAJ: Even the Zappa stuff!

CM: Yeah, the Zappa stuff. Well, even the jazz fans, I
think, don’t even recognize Zappa probably as they should. But
George Duke, I think, you talk about all the great jazz pianists
from the ‘60s, you talk about the Herbies and the Chicks and
McCoys and the Keith Jarretts—I think that George Duke was right
in there. He came after those guys, but just in terms of sheer
harmonic palette on the piano, feel, knowledge of the
history—I mean, George Duke can hold his own with any of those
guys. He just made a conscious decision to kind of go the other
route.

But the one thing that I remember most about A Family
Affair, which was probably one of my most—I mean, in my own
memory—that was probably my most romanticized recording session
because secondary to making the album I got to be really really
close with George and his entire family. And after we finished
A Family Affair I got to stay close with George on a
personal and a musical, a professional, level. A Family
Affairs opened the doors to a whole lot of different things
in a lot of different ways.

AAJ: Is he as nice as he seems—is he
that much of a teddy bear?

CM: That he is. He is probably the nicest, sweetest man in
the whole world. He’s quirkless. He doesn’t have many quirks. I
mean, he’s just a real everyday kind of regular guy.

AAJ: Your most recent studio release
was Vertical Vision (Warner Bros. Jazz, 2003), and was
surprised to learn that it included guitarist David Gilmore? How
did that come about?

CM: Well, David was also on Sci-Fi. Actually, David
Gilmore, we affectionately call him “the fifth Beatle” in my
band. He’s worked on our last two CDs but I’ve never had enough
money (laughs) to make him a permanent member of the
band. So we call him “the fifth Beatle.” I first started working
with Dave, we worked together with Wayne Shorter briefly back in
’97. I was familiar with his work with all the M-Base stuff with
Greg Osby and Cassandra Wilson and all those guys. I love his
playing so much. Unfortunately he couldn’t be part of the
Live at Tonic CD because he was out of town on a state
department tour. But his spirit is there.

My memories of that particular session are ones of just
kind of hoping that the energy that we had live could be
captured in the studio. It’s really hard to do that. I think we
got... it was fair. I particularly like “Technicolor Nightmare”
and “Boogie Woogie Waltz,” we were able to capture that real
hardcore, and “The Ballad of Little Girl Dancer,” that kind of
raw energy that the band had live. It was an okay record. I
think that this new CD certainly, for obvious reasons, gets that
pure electricity of the group, that pure, primal feeling. It
captured it much better than Vertical Vision did.

All the Way Live at Tonic

AAJ: Which brings us up to the new
record: Your previous studio album was released on Warner Bros.
and the one before that on Verve—How did this live album end up
on Ropeadope? And as a follow-up: How was the pricing decision
made for this album and by whom?

CM: First question is that this live CD was originally
supposed to be on Warner Brothers but in 2003 I believe it was
Warner Bros. dissolved their jazz label. So there were a lot of
artists like myself, Joshua Redman, Kenny Garrett, Nicholas
Payton, who got jammed up because of the fallout at Warner
Brothers. As a matter of fact, Joshua Redman’s Elastic CD
was actually finished and was waiting for a release when Warner
Brothers dissolved, so he was stuck with an album and nowhere to
put it out. So Nonesuch picked it up.

It was the same thing with my live album: We were
originally supposed to record my live album at Yoshi’s in
Oakland and as things happened there was no more Warner Brothers
Jazz and we all had to kind of scramble and start making new
plans. Then of course Andy Hurwitz and I had a really good
relationship from The Philadelphia Experiment and a
couple of Ropeadope shows that he put together with myself and
Charlie Hunter and DJ Logic. So I kind of figured, for the kind
of thing that we’re doing, Ropeadope probably would be the
perfect place to do a live album.

And as far as the pricing is concerned, Andy decided that,
‘Well, you know, we’ve got to think of some really good things
to kind of hook people, not just musically but to give ‘em
something else, so how about a double CD for a list price at
$15.95,’ whatever it was. We thought, ‘Yeah, okay, sounds good,
no problem.’ ‘Cause it was going to be a cheap record to make,
you know, low overhead. So we had a double CD but then we had so
much music that I thought, ‘Man, I don’t know how we’re gonna
work this out. How are we gonna jam two sets into one CD?’ So
Andy said, ‘Well, screw it. Let’s just make it three CDs.’

AAJ: Four of these songs on the
first set haven’t appeared anywhere else yet—do you plan to
record studio versions of these tunes?

CM: Probably not. We’ll probably leave them like they are
on the CD because that’s how we’d probably do ‘em. The way we
recorded them live is how we would record them in the studio
anyway, so we’ll probably just leave them be.

AAJ: One of the most enjoyable
things about this new record is not only that there’s so much
music on it, but that there’s so much different music on it.
It’s a jazz record that has more than jazz on it. So you’ve got
to wonder: You catching any hell for this record?

CM: I think after A Family Affair came out—which
was, what, eight years ago—that I was put on the straight-ahead
post office outlaw board. I think that ever since then, people
don’t even bother to mess with me about doing non-jazz things. I
think I’ve been able to successfully establish myself as a
musician who’s rooted in jazz, but who doesn’t live by
the rules of 4/4 traditional swing rhythms. I like to broaden it
out and do a lot of different things.

AAJ: Are you a good dancer?

CM: I don’t know, I haven’t done it in a long time. I used
to be. I think up until the time... I don’t know, maybe. I don’t
even know when the cutoff point was, but I used to go out
dancing all the time, up until around seven, eight years ago.

AAJ: You have two additional
responsibilities that I’d like to give you a chance to explain.
What do you do as co-director of the Jazz Museum in Harlem?

CM: The Jazz Museum in Harlem is still a work in progress.
It’s a fun work in progress. I’ve found myself going to all
these meetings with city councilmen and all these local
politicians to try to get some ideas about getting a building
and getting funding to open this museum officially. So part of
my job is being a politician, which is interesting here in New
York City (laughs). I’m hooking up with Mayor Bloomberg’s
cronies and things like that, sitting in these meetings going,
‘I’m a bass player—what am I doing here?’ But it’s been fun.

Loren Schoenberg, who has been running the museum now for
a couple of years, we actually work together at Jazz Aspen every
summer, which is another program that I run. When he started
working at the jazz museum, which he kind of inherited from
Leonard Garment, the former White House lawyer... I guess he
kind of figured, ‘If we’re going to build a museum in Harlem and
we’re going to get the support of the local neighborhood
businesses, the citizens of Harlem, and musicians, they
probably could use a little credibility.’ So that’s what brought
me on board. I’m not sure how much credibility I brought them
because I spend most of my time on the road. I’m like the
co-Director-slash-world-ambassador for the Jazz Museum of
Harlem, but it’s been a whole lot of fun.

AAJ: And as Creative Chair for the
Los Angeles Philharmonic?

CM: And the LA Philharmonic gig, my first season as
creative chair actually starts this summer, in July. This gig is
really a whole of fun because now I get to dream up my favorite
program series; you know, like different kinds of projects, or
people I could put together, or bands that I would like to see
get out there and play in some nice venues, and make it happen.
I think my crowning achievement, even this is only my first
year, is that I actually got James Brown to agree to do Soul
on Top live. This will be his first jazz concert ever.

I will finally get to do—Oh, it’s also going to be a DVD,
and so I will get to record a DVD and to play and conduct—I
don’t know how I’m going to do that yet, all at the same
time—but I’m going to be working with Mister Brown on September
sixth.

AAJ: You’ll be bobbin’ your head a
lot, that’s for sure.

CM: You got that right

I think I've been able to successfully establish myself as a musician
who's rooted in jazz,